Lurie Garden’s Free Summer Program Lineup includes lectures by four experts in their respective fields, all of whom work with pollinators as well as additional programming aimed just for the younger crowd.
On June 14, urban beekeepers, Michael Thomson (Chicago Honey Co-op) and Jana Kinsman (Bike-A-Bee) will discuss how trees, not ordinarily thought of as an important tool for helping pollinators, are helping pollinators traverse Chicago.
Honeybees return to the hives at Lurie Garden after foraging.
Heather Holm, author of the award-winning “Bees: An Identification and Native Plant Forage Guide”, will discuss the clever engineering of flowers that entice, direct, and let’s be honest, outright manipulate pollinators into helping them execute world domination. Heather will be lecturing at the Chicago Cultural Center on July 19, 1-3pm.
Red Admiral butterfly on sweetspire ‘Morton’ at Lurie Garden.
For those who learn by doing, scientists from the Nature Conservancy will be leading a walk around Lurie Garden on August 17 pointing out pollinators at work and (gently) snatching them up for a closer look. This is the kind of walk that opens one’s eyes to see just how busy the garden is with working pollinators.
Karl Gnaedinger, Project Manager of Indian Boundary Prairie of The Nature Conservancy in Illinois shows Pollinator Walk participants a native bee in Lurie Garden.
Additional programs focused on pollinators appropriate for all ages include Lurie Garden’s Sunday Science series – microscopes are dusted off to get a closer look at flowers, insects, spiders. Not to forget the bigger pollinators, birds, and bats get their spotlight too. Bat biologists from Incredible Bats will be showing off some fuzzy flying mammals and the final Sunday Science event will cover birds as they collect seeds from the garden on their way south.
In Lurie Garden’s Sunday Science Series we use tools such as microscopes and binoculars to get a closer look at things in the garden.
More information about these and other free Lurie Garden Programs at luriegarden.org/events.